


wear a necklace of rope side by side with me

by thelilacfield



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Forbidden Love, Hunger Games Victors, Hunger Games-Typical Death/Violence, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 10:34:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24968302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelilacfield/pseuds/thelilacfield
Summary: “You’re saying you want us to-”“Expose yourselves and use your whole starcrossed lovers thing to gather sympathy and stop the Games, yes. The Capitol loves manufactured melodrama. We’ll give it to them in spades."
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33





	wear a necklace of rope side by side with me

**A/N:** Apparently these days I specialise in writing fics that are supposed to be one-shots but get way too long. Also known as the _Hunger Games_ AU I always wanted to write but thought was out of date until Suzanne Collins brought _THG_ into 2020. If she can do it, so can I. For _Hunger Games_ fans, don't worry, there won't be any spoiler references to anything we learned from _The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes_ here, aside from some reference to the music of Panem.

Title obviously taken from _The Hanging Tree_.

**Chapter warning: talk of miscarriage, abortion, and forced abortion**

* * *

She hides in a pool of shadow at the edge of the lake, the skirts of her dress tucked up against her legs to keep her out of sight. When she shifts, the moonlight plays across the silk to show the subtle glimmers of fiery orange and yellow that glimmer through the black. Like a coal fire, her stylist said. The Victory Ball is a place to remind everyone of their Victors, seventy-four years of damaged broken children who watched other children bleed just to go home to enough food.

A braid is tumbling from the intricate hairstyle her prep team constructed, threaded with gold, and she tucks her fingers through the loops of dark hair, ruining their handiwork. Making herself less of their doll to be wheeled out to impress the Capitol, for her photograph to be thrown across gossip tomorrow in her pretty dress, her cheeks lightly flushed and her eyes dark with liner. At least she can stare into the cameras with steely eyes and remind these frivolous people who she is. What they made her go through.

The sounds of the party spill out with the light from an open door, and she finds the pin to place her braid back in place, trying to look like just some drunken Victor lost in the gardens. If needs must, she can always fall into the lake to convince everyone of the ruse. Though it would mean long sad looks from her stylist for ruining the dress for months to come.

Music and laughter carries through the dark, sounds of revelry, celebration for Panem's latest Victor. Some Career tribute who painted her pretty face in blood and shrieked like an ancient warrior for the cameras, now polished and powdered and dressed in white, floating like a goddess brought back to life among the people fawning over her. Looking at her pale, pinched face in the reflection of the lake, moonlight spilling shadows into the hollows of her cheeks, she says a silent prayer for that girl. She's too pretty for her own good. The Capitol will chew her up and spit her out scarred and scared.

Gravel on the wide looping paths crunches beneath footsteps, and she rearranges herself on the low stone wall, slumping over as if she's just another of the people who'll drink too much tonight and wake up with fragmented memories. If only any amount of the potent clear alcohol of the Capitol could wash her mind clean of the games. The bodies she saw, the sound of the cannon announcing another life snuffed out, the collapsing buildings filling her lungs with dust she almost choked on, the pitiful hopeless screams of the injured. Pietro pulling her shaking hand around the hilt of her knife forward until the blade was buried in his belly, his blood spilling dark across their uniforms, streaking her hands in scarlet that she still wakes up to see painted across her skin in the middle of the night, the scream swelling in her chest.

"Wanda?" The smoothly-accented whisper drifts out of the dark and paints a soft smile over her face, and she resumes her straight-backed vigil at the edge of the lake. Vision is wearing some strange deep green jumpsuit threaded with gold like a circuit board, and he casts his gaze over her before glancing ruefully down at himself. "Clearly District 12 is an easier aesthetic to render in clothes than District 3," he says, and she laughs softly.

"Or perhaps it's just that you will never look as good in silly Capitol creations as you do in nothing at all," she teases. It's the first time in six months that she's seen the colour spill bright across his cheekbones, lighting his face in pleased embarrassment, and she grins smugly in the shadows. "I didn't see you earlier."

"Stark found me," he says, and she suppresses a shiver at the Head Gamemaker's name. The man whose father signed off on unsafe working conditions that killed her parents. The man who made the arena Pietro died in. The man who spends his years designing places where twenty-three children die and one is permanently traumatised and never pauses to think of it. "He wanted to ask questions about some tech they want to experiment with for next year. Only three hundred and thirty days until the next Reaping."

"Let's not talk about that," she says softly. Glances around them and listens for anyone else in the dark. But they're all inside, dancing and drinking and chasing away their demons, if only for the night. In the quiet of liquid shadow, only the song of the wind and water to keep them company, she can draw Vision in close and kiss him. His lips are full and familiar on his, even in months since their last snatched kiss amongst tangled sheets. She can sink her fingers into his hair again, breathe him in, the scent of clean clothes and something sweet caught beneath it. He is hers and she is his again, in this pool of darkness, this perfect moment of silence.

"I missed you," he breathes onto her parted lips when the kiss ends, and she smiles and pulls him in again. The fabric of his jumpsuit is rough against her skin, scratching over scars concealed by Capitol technology, but she pulls him closer still in their darkness. The sounds of the party seem very far away when she's in his arms, his fingers wrapped carefully over the small of her back. When they break away for a breath, colour has flooded his handsome face, and she traces a finger reverently over the line of his collar where the flush begins. "Which guesthouse are you staying in?"

"Iphigenia," she says softly. "Where are you?"

"Daedalus," he says. "Will you come to me or will I come to you?"

"Clint always sees these miserable parties through to the end," she says, and the decision is made. One last kiss and they part with a promise in the brush of their fingertips, and she watches him vanish back into the party before she goes to feign a headache and get herself chauffeured back to the guesthouses.

When Vision's coded knock comes at the door of the Iphigenia guesthouse, she greets him as herself, not the doll the Capitol makes her. Her dress is abandoned in a frothy heap of silk, braids unravelled and the gold showered away, wet coils sticking to her neck and shoulders above her plain, simple clothes from home. He's still wearing that damn scratchy jumpsuit, and the moment he closes the door into nothing but warm candlelight that reminds her of District 12 she lets her fingers stray to the zipper and peels the material away from him, fingers smoothing down the familiar pale expanse of his slender chest and pulling him into her arms.

She lies propped up on his chest afterwards, listening to his harsh breathing and smiling as she traces patterns into his flat stomach with her fingertips. "I always wonder if it'll be different after six months apart," she says softly, and his gaze finds hers, his eyes warm and bright with the thing they leave unspoken. "But it never is. Always as good as our first time."

"Do we still agree that we don't say it?" he asks, and she nods against his chest, chin pressing into his skin. "Even if we want to?" Another nod. "Then can I regale you with a quote I found reading plays from long before Panem began?" She sighs but nods, and he lifts her chin to look into her eyes. "'One half of me is yours, the other half yours. Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours, And so all yours'." He smiles as he speaks it, and her heart constricts in a painful skip, the words they promised not to say lit up bright and brilliant in her mind.

"Vizh-"

"There are a million ways to say what we agreed we'd never say," he says, his face soft and lit up like starlight. "And I will say every single one of them. You know how I feel. You've always known."

"You know I feel the same way," she says, and leans up to kiss him, soft and sweet on the centre of his perfect lips. "I just...we can't say it. It feels like bad luck. Everyone I say it to has a tendency to wind up dead. Contact is forbidden between districts. I don't know what we're risking to have this. Have us."

"We both won," he says, his hand curved over the small of her back like he's cradling her. "We did what they asked. The Games are over for us."

She doesn't want to speak the words that spring to her tongue, carving pain into her throat like broken glass. It spoils their moment, the night characterised by pounding hears and frantic hands and gasps against each other's skin. But the words spill from her anyway, the dark truth that every Victor feels as a shadow at their shoulder.

"The Games are never over."

* * *

Laura gives her a long, pointed look, and Wanda tucks her hair behind her ears and sighs, "What?"

"You look tired," she says, jogging Nathaniel on her hip as he chews on the ear of his teddy bear. "Do you want some more of that lavender tea? I think it helped last time, right?"

"That would be nice," she says, and Laura smiles. It feels wrong to say in the kitchen that Laura painted sunshine yellow that she only said the tea helped her sleep to be polite. She spends her nights avoiding sleep, plucking at the strings of her guitar, watching the wick of her candle burn down to the tiniest spark, holding her eyes open when the darkness presses in. Sleep means nightmares, collapsing buildings and silent screams beneath explosions and always, always, the light fading from Pietro's eyes when he died in her arms, her knife in his gut.

The door is kicked open in a spray of snow, and Clint is pulling the scarf covering his face down, Lila scuttling in red-nosed and radiant behind him, triumphantly dropping a bag of rabbits in the doorway. "I got them all myself!" she says, bright and bubbly in the way only a thirteen year old can be. Her life untouched by the Games that let her father win long before she was born.

"Lila, honey, please don't dump those in the hallway," Laura says, the hand not cradling Nathaniel on her hip. "You know the rule. Clean your catch out back."

"You should've seen her, honey," Clint says, his eyes bright and clear and happy. "She's gonna be a better shot than me by the time she's eighteen. A regular little Hawkeye, aren't you, Lil?"

"No one cares about your dumb Games nickname, Dad," Lila says, rolling her eyes. "Can we make a stew with these tonight, Mom?"

"You check the garden while you're cleaning them and see what you can get for vegetables," Laura says, and Lila scoops up her bag of rabbits and scurries to the back door and the garden. Wanda sits quietly, wondering what this life would look like outside of Victor's Village. Clint was seventeen when he won the games, Laura was just the sweetheart back home he talked about wistfully in his interviews. If they hadn't lived in Victor's Village, Clint might have been in the mines. The accident that killed her parents might have killed him.

"Are you staying for dinner, Wanda?" Clint asks, washing dirt and smears of blood and gore from his hands before he takes Nathaniel from Laura, kissing his son's forehead. She stares at them, father and son, the family she might have dreamed of having. Before she fell into forbidden love and had to force herself to know that she'll never have that. Snatches of seconds every six months are all she can have until her and Vision fade away into a story she'll tell her grandchildren about her wild youth.

"Better than rattling around by myself over there," she says, gesturing vaguely across the street to her house. She's lived there in name only for almost ten years, spending more time with the Bartons when she's in District 12. When she isn't in the Capitol mentoring, or being paraded out with the rest of the living Victors for the Victory Tours and the celebrations at the end of the Games. Those twice-yearly appearances that she dreads, and yet yearns for. The nights she can spend meeting Vision's eyes across crowded rooms, waiting for the silent signal to go to him.

"We'll miss you when you have to go out for the Quarter Quell announcement," Laura says, light as an ocean breeze. Frustration only drifts into her voice like crackling electricity when she says, "I don't see why Victors have to go to the Capitol for this. President Pierce could just make this announcement to the Districts without you."

"Well, Laura, it's simple," Wanda says. "The Districts like us a hell of a lot more than they like him. We're the shield. He's going to tell them all something they don't like."

"The Capitol is already up in arms over how he's treating Candela Dawnworth," Clint says, and Wanda twitches at the mention of the most recent Victor. That pretty little girl in her gauzy white dress, blonde hair in perfect spiralling curls, pink lips smiling for the cameras and her skin dusted in glitter. "They're worried about her. They think tributes are supposed to have charmed lives but she looks sad when they see her."

"Heaven forbid a Victor looks _sad_ ," Wanda snaps. "What do those freaks think? That you can just watch twenty-three children die just so you can go home and that you'll ever be able to sleep soundly at night again-"

"Please don't talk like that in front of the children," Laura says, a soft warning.

"There's still a chance for Lila or Nathaniel to end up there too-"

"That's _enough_." Two words, but firm enough with the steel in Laura's eyes to quiet her. "Clint, go make sure that Lila is preparing those rabbits right. Wanda, you can help me chop herbs. I'd like enough stew to have leftovers."

For the moment, for the evening, the Games can't touch them. There's only the delicious stew, fresh bread from the market to mop up gravy, the family chatter, Nathaniel spilling a drink and the rhythms of the Barton household.

But when Wanda walks home alone to her dark room, the Games are waiting for her. She curls herself into a tight ball beneath her covers, and tries to push away the dark memories with thinking of the next time she'll see Vision, the next time they'll sneak a shadowed kiss, the next time she'll sink into his arms and sigh his name.

She only has to get through Pierce's speech about the Quarter Quell. Just that. Then she can have the night she's waited six months for.

* * *

The room is bright with the colours of Panem's best and brightest, former Victors in ensembles that stylists have been frantically designing since this celebration was announced standing in small groups and talking in hushed voices. Wanda is in red, a comparatively simple dress to a lot of what she's worn before, hair falling straight and shiny over her bare shoulders and her skin dusted in barely perceptible shimmer. Her dress hugs her figure and spills to a slit skirt, and she wonders where Vision is in the crowd. If he's looking at her.

Clint is all in black, the look that has become his trademark, and he's at her elbow, looking around the room. She may have been a part of the illustrious group of Victors for ten years, but he's been a part of this all since he won at sixteen, the desperately skinny boy she's seen in archived recordings who outlasted stronger, older competitors with only a bow and arrow. Knuckles white around a glass of whiskey, he lowers his mouth to her ear as people drift past, telling her who they are. "That's Natasha Romanoff, District 2...Sam Wilson, District 4...Gamora, District 1...Thor and Loki Odinsson, District 2...Mantis, District 11...Hope van Dyne, District 8...Drax, District 7...Rocket, District 5...Helen Cho, District 3-"

She has to force herself not to react when she sees Vision at his mentor's side. Helen is glamorous in a silver gown, dark hair swept over one shoulder, and Vision must have gotten a new and better stylist since the last time she saw him. His navy suit is perfect against his paleness, sparkling with gold thread, and when he looks up and catches her eye in a gap between bodies the air tingles with anticipation, electricity. His gaze flickers over her dress, lingering where it clings to her curves, and she gives him a smile silked with promise.

The gold-jacketed band quiets as President Pierce steps up to his podium, his piercing gaze roaming the room until there is only anticipatory silence. He wears his usual all white ensemble, the crest of Panem pinned to his lapel, and under the disguise of the crowds Wanda reaches out to grip Clint's wrist. His fingers brush over her knuckles, a silent gesture of togetherness and reassurance, and she imagines the Bartons in their home in the Victor's Village, watching this broadcast. When they get back to District 12, she can tell Lila about her dress, about the food at the Capitol buffet, about the music. She can try to play the jaunty songs on her father's old guitar, make this all sound like fun. Like a story that won't touch the lives of those children.

"Welcome, Panem," Pierce says, voice rolling out across the silence like thunder on an empty field. He must have a microphone concealed on him somewhere, and rather than be intimidated Wanda focuses on looking for the inevitable speck of black on his pure as snow ensemble. Maybe it's hidden in the red rose tucked into his buttonhole, the petals so dark against the white. Like blood on canvas. Pietro's blood streaming her pale hands, and she looks away and takes a breath, clinging tighter to Clint's wrist to steady herself. "I have gathered you here on this glorious night to celebrate the Quarter Quell. When the sun rose on the last of the Dark Days, our founders wrote the Hunger Games into law. And they wrote that there should be a special Games every twenty-five years, to keep us all reminded of the Dark Days. We must never forget our mistakes, Panem, lest we are doomed to repeat them."

The room is humming with anticipation, every eye turned up to their President. For a stupid, giddy moment, she thinks that she could choose this moment to steal away with Vision and no one would even notice, too enchanted by the persuasive purr of their President's voice. The way he enchants the country to never question him, never see through him, never turn around and see that they send two dozen children to their deaths every year and treat it as entertainment. Maybe she would sneak away, if Clint wasn't beside her, staring up at Pierce with terror behind his eyes even though he tries to hide it.

"Our first Quarter Quell saw you, the residents of Panem, choose who would go to the Hunger Games that year," Pierce says. "Our second saw twice as many brave tributes enter the arena to fight for their lives. Now we will see the third, and what a Games it will be. I have called my Victors here tonight to bear witness to this historic moment. All of you stepped into the arena once and survived. We honour those Victors from long ago who passed away before they could see this glorious day."

His eyes shine like steel and a smile sharp as a sword burns itself onto the back of Wanda's eyelids as he says, "Victors and citizens of Panem, for the 75th Annual Hunger Games, the prestigious third Quarter Quell, we will see something unlike anything we've seen before. The tributes of this year's Games will be Reaped from the existing pool of Victors. For twelve of the very people in this room, you will have another chance to prove yourself in the arena. There can be no higher honour."

A long moment of silence.

White noise ringing in her ears. Blood pounding behind her eyes.

Then uproar.

Victors are shouting as Pierce stands in smug smiling silence. She sees glimpses of angry faces, of crumpling expressions, of eyes shining with sudden tears, and her stomach roils. She tugs her wrist through Clint's tightening grip and runs, stumbling in her heeled shoes out into the gardens, sour nausea at the back of her throat. She doubles over and retches into the bushes, dry heaving until she's crying at the pain of it, twisting her fingers in her dress. The dress that shouldn't be on her at all, she should be safe in the Barton home in District 12, eating homemade cookies and counting down the days until she'll see Vision again.

She hears the sound of a door opening, feels the shadow block out the moonlight as someone walks up behind her, and then there are arms around her, holding her as her knees give out beneath her. A kiss at her temple, and, " _Vizh_ ," comes out in a tremulous sob, tearing out of her in a breathless panicked rush.

"I couldn't be in there," he whispers, pulling her back against him, and she clings to him so fiercely it feels like the bones of her knuckles are about to split through her skin, clutching him like a lifeline to a drowning man. "They turned off the cameras and Pierce left and it's sheer madness. People are screaming and trampling each other and crying. They're threatening to beat down the doors to get to the Gamemakers and tell them they can't do this."

"The Capitol can do whatever they want," she says, and her voice doesn't sound like her own. It's hollow, broken, the last string of her tenuous steadiness snapped. "They own us. All of us. Citizens and Victors."

"We can fight this-"

"I'm the only female Victor District 12 has ever had," she says. "Clint is the only surviving male Victor. We're going back. I'm going back, oh _God help me_ -"

"Look at me." He turns her with hands at her waist, lifting her chin so her eyes find his, the blue familiar and peppered with reflections of the stars above them, and he takes her face between his hands, holding her a little too tightly so it hurts. A good hurt, the sort that makes her feel alive, present in this moment. "I'm going back too. If I'm not Reaped, I'll volunteer. I won't let you feel alone in the arena."

"You can't-"

"I love you." He says it fiercely, hard and sure and true, and tears spring to her eyes, pressure hard in her chest. "I know we said we wouldn't say it. But everything is...it's all fucked now anyway. I won't go back into that arena without telling you. I know you know, but I have to say it. I love you, Wanda Maximoff. I love you with everything I am and everything I ever will be. I've loved you since I was a child watching you win your Games, and I will love you until I die. You are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, and if it took fighting in the Games to meet you, then every nightmare is worth it."

"I love you too," she breathes in a broken rush as tears spill over, tracing silvery down her cheeks, taking intricate make-up with them. "I remember watching your games, and you were so determined and so compassionate, and I-" He kisses her into silence, his lips hot and frantic on hers, and she pulls away to ask, "Don't I get to make my pretty speech first?"

"Tell me later," he breathes, and she kisses him first. They collide in a shower of sparks, her arms tangling tight around his neck, her fingers twisting into his hair to hold him closer. His arms around her, they stumble backwards until her back collides with a tree, the bark scratching her bare skin above her dress. It's the most frantic kiss they've shared in almost five years of stolen moments, and his hand is sliding from the small of her back to the slit of her dress, his wide palm on her thigh, drawing her leg around him, and the way they press together makes her groan against his mouth.

A cleared throat, and they start guiltily apart. Vision's mouth is smeared with her lipstick, his hand whipping away from beneath her dress, and she hastily straightens up when she sees Clint staring at them. "I was worried about you," he says, and there's a terrible steely edge to his voice. "You pulled away and vanished and I knew what you must be going through. What you must be reliving. Then I come looking, and I find you kissing a Victor from another District _right under Pierce's nose_?! What are you _thinking_ , Wanda?"

"Please, Mr. Barton, sir-"

"Oh, don't start with me, hotshot, Helen and I have been friends for years and you're getting marched straight to her when this is done," Clint says, and Wanda tries to straighten up and compose herself, despite her smeared lipstick and flushed face and frantic heartbeat. "How long has this been going on?"

"Um...every time Victors are gathered together for five years," she says, and Clint looks thunderous. "I...we've been careful. We've always been careful. This was just...Clint, I was overwhelmed, I was panicking, and he came after me, we-"

"Shut it, young lady," Clint snaps, and she shuts it. "So you've been sleeping together since he won his Games?" She nods, and he looks between them. "And why the hell didn't you tell me before this? Now we've only got a few months to use this starcrossed forbidden lovers bit to garner sympathy. Good thing the Capitol loves melodrama."

She blinks a few times at her mentor and finally chokes out, "What? You're...you're not...angry?"

"Oh, I'm furious with you for being dumb enough to do this where Pierce or a Peacekeeper might have caught you," he says, almost cheerfully. "But since I caught you, I'm not blindsided. We can spin this. All you two will have to do is get caught, and you're clearly great at that."

"Does...does Helen know about this?" Vision asks, and Clint briefly smiles.

"She saw you follow Wanda away, and told me to follow you," he says. "Pretty sure that woman has known for years. You're probably not as subtle as you think you are. Luckily, we can plan for this since your mentors know."

"What do you mean?" Clint shakes his head at her, and leans towards them to lace her fingers back with Vision's.

"You're in love, correct?" They nod, and he folds his arms, looking sternly between them. "I assume that means when Wanda is inevitably Reaped for these Games you're planning to follow her there?" Vision nods, squeezing Wanda's hand, and Clint grins. "I promise you one thing. Right now, every Victor is in there pairing up with old friends, trying to figure out a way to stop the Games. You two are a ready-made fairytale the Capitol will adore. Two Victors falling for each other across District barriers? You'll eat up all the interview time Grandmaster has."

"You're saying you want us to-"

"Expose yourselves and use your whole starcrossed lovers thing to gather sympathy and stop the Games, yes," Clint says. As if it's simple. As if it's final. As if it will ever work. "The Capitol loves manufactured melodrama. We'll give it to them in spades. I have a wife and three kids, I don't want to go back into the arena any more than either of you do. No one in there does."

Wanda stares at her mentor for a moment, then looks at Vision. Her lipstick staining his handsome face, his hand entwined with hers, his gaze on her. Letting her choose. Even when they're both facing down the Games again, looking at probable death, he's letting her make the final decision.

She loves him so much. Enough that she squeezes his hand, turns to Clint, and asks, "How do you suggest we expose ourselves?"

* * *

"You know them as well as I do," Grandmaster says, the lights flaring bright in Wanda's face. Only Vision's hand wrapped around hers keeps her grounded as the interviewer turns towards them, teeth sparkling in a pasted-on grin. "We've all seen that infamous video, haven't we?" A roar from the crowd, and he looks at Wanda. He's glittering, blue liner ringing his eyes, and she forces her face to smooth into a smile. "Tell me, Wanda, Vision, have you seen your starring turn?"

"No one can turn around in the Capitol without seeing it, Grandmaster," she says, the sweetness turning to acid in her mouth, and he laughs that same uproarious laugh he always has, head thrown back and every movement so dramatic.

"Well, let's give ourselves a little treat and watch it again, shall we?" he asks with a gesture to the audience, who shriek their approval. The screen lowers behind them on the stage and she exchanges a brief moment of tired eye contact with Vision before they both turn to watch the video from the security camera that Helen made sure was trained on Vision's guesthouse in the early morning the day after the announcement of the Quarter Quell.

The scene plays out exactly the way they planned it with Clint and Helen, dancing back and forth between other groups of Victors planning their tactics, how they can fill the few months until the Reaping with something, anything that will stop the Games going ahead. She watches herself creep out of the guesthouse in plain simple clothes, her red dress folded under her arms and her heels dangling from one hand. Her hair is a tangled mess and her face delicately flushed, the very picture of someone leaving the scene of a night of passion. Vision appears behind her, the camera catching a short glimpse of his bare chest that someone in the audience wolf whistles for, and their figures on the video lean into a lingering kiss.

"My, my, so _steamy_ ," Grandmaster says, and the audience cheers in response. "So tell me, you two," he leans forward in his chair, piercing eyes and eager smile, "how long has this been going on? How long has this love story been blooming?"

"Well, I can't speak for the timeline of Wanda's feelings," Vision says gently, and when she turns to look at him he's gazing at her with so much softness in his eyes that her heart swells with warmth. "But I think I fell in love with her as a thirteen year old in District 3. I could still tell you exactly what the dress she wore when she was crowned Victor of the 65th Hunger Games looked like."

"Oh, so sweet," Grandmaster says, and turns his gaze on her. "What about you, wonderful Wanda? When did you fall in love? How did you feel when you met Victor the Victor?"

"I think he saved my life," she says, and the audience coos in response, she sees the love in Vision's eyes. "When we met at his Victory Ball, my whole world changed. He was so sweet and genuine, and _so_ handsome," a whoop from a woman in the audience, and a pleased blush spilling across his cheeks, "how could anyone not fall in love with him?"

"You are a lucky woman to have captured his heart," Grandmaster says, and she smiles, lets that talk show host call for applause when she leans across the velvet couch and kisses Vision softly, just once. "And you've certainly captured Panem's heart, haven't they?" The audience roars, and she says a silent thank you to Clint for his plan. It's worked to perfection so far. "Oh goodness, we do so love ourselves a pair of starcrossed lovers. Two Victors falling in love across District barriers, so _romantic_. How ever did you keep it a secret all these years?"

"We'd only spend time together while we were both in the Capitol," Vision says, and she nods, curling into his side, letting his warmth reassure her, her shield against the gazes of the gaudy Capitol citizens. "For Victory Tours and, of course, the Games themselves. We'd plan everything in looks across crowded rooms. We knew we could get into trouble if we were caught."

"Oh, but who could punish two young lovers with a perfect fairytale love?" Grandmaster teases, and her smile feels edged with knives. They all know exactly who would punish them. She has no doubt that President Pierce will still find a way to punish them for breaking the laws, even though the Capitol has adopted them as their new favourite starcrossed lovers so quickly. "We are so glad that you've chosen now to share your love with us. We all love your love, don't we folks?" The audience is screaming their names, an overwhelming scream, and she clutches Vision tighter to ward off the memories of her last time on this stage. Broken and half-starved and forced to be pretty and smiling for the cameras while the sound of her brother's last breath still echoed in her ears as the audience cheered for their Victor.

"We're glad that we don't have to hide this anymore," Vision says, and she nods, quiet at his side. "I love her more than anything. To finally be allowed to love her publicly, the way she deserves...you can't imagine how wonderful it is." He smiles down at her, and she smiles back, leaning up to kiss him again. The cameras and the audience can never make this fake, the way he looks at her, the way he kisses her, his hand tightening against her hip hidden from the Capitol's gaze.

"You can see why I fell so hard for him," she tells Grandmaster when they fall apart, grinning at the camera when Vision blushes. "He's quite the charmer."

"So this is real love?" Grandmaster asks. "True love? The love of a lifetime?"

"He's my everything," she says, squeezing Vision's hand tight in hers.

"Strong words from our wonderful Wanda," Grandmaster says. "Vision, it is my understanding that you have words of your own that you would like to share with us today."

"I do," he says, and unlaces his fingers from Wanda's. He's standing from the couch, and then dropping to one knee in front of her, and her hand flies to her mouth as the crowd screams. "I have wanted to do this for five years," he says, his gaze never wavering from hers even as his eyes fill with the sheen of tears. "I love you, Wanda. I love you more with every breath, and I can't imagine ever not loving you. I thought that the life I wanted with you was impossible, but I don't care anymore. I don't want to live my life without you by my side, in every way you can be." There's a box in his hand, the lid opened to reveal a simple slender gold band with a red stone set into it, the lights flickering over it to make it glow. "Wanda, will you marry me?"

"You mean it?" she gasps, and he nods. "This is really happening?" Another nod, and she holds out her hand, tears in her eyes and piercing her words. "Yes. Yes, I'll marry you."

The screaming reaches a crescendo when he slides the ring onto her finger, and she leans down to kiss him, their tears mingling. "I love you," he breathes into the kiss, and she reaches up to wipe the tears gently from his cheeks. "They can't make that fake. I love you and I want to marry you. All the time we have left, I want with you."

No one hears him say it, still screaming. It's only for her, and she kisses him again, crying helplessly. When they do part and return to their seats, she plasters herself into his side, his sweet warmth, and Grandmaster beams at them. No doubt they're making for a spectacular broadcast. "Congratulations to you two!" he shouts, and the crowd roars. "The wedding of the year, nay, the decade! The millennium! We are all so, so happy for you. Please keep us in the loop on all the planning."

"We will," she says, and remembers her interview training enough to tilt her left hand towards the cameras, letting them get that lingering shot of her new engagement ring. "We want you all to be a part of our love story. The Games brought us together, and we are all a part of the Games."

When she feels the cameras zooming in on her bright, happy face, she imagines Clint and Helen clinking their glasses in one of the guesthouses. Their bomb landed exactly as wanted.

* * *

Reaping Day dawns bright and hot, the haze shimmering in the air at the archway into the Victor's Village. She's shaking despite the heat as she steps into her Reaping outfit, a simple black jumpsuit fitted tight to her body, stripes of dark red at the collar and cuffs and wrapping around her waist. With hair loose and her face pale and set, she looks like she's marching to her death. In a way, she supposes she is.

Clint is dressed almost identically, though the stripes on his jumpsuit are a deep purple instead of red. When they meet in the street between their homes, he stares at her for a long moment before he quietly says, "You look beautiful." His gaze drops briefly to her hand, the engagement ring, and he smiles tightly. "I guess they're matching the red to your ring."

"I guess they want a theme," she says. The conversation fades away before it can even begin, the sun beating down on the bleached ground. Clint's family are all dressed in their finest, Laura in the same blue dress she always wears to the Reaping, Nathaniel at her hip clutching his teddy bear to his chest. Even he looks afraid, the shadow of the Reaping cast long and dark over the day.

It's a different set-up at the centre of town. Rather than separate the children into their age groups, everyone is gathered to watch. Peacekeepers usher Wanda onto the stage, and she glances back to see Clint exchange his goodbyes with his family, inexplicable tears prickling her eyes. She sees Lila red-faced with trying not to cry, Cooper's face buried in his father's shoulder, Nathaniel reaching for one last embrace before Clint turns away. He kisses Laura, their foreheads tilted together as they exchange a last whisper, and Nathaniel's sad call of, "Daddy?" follows him onto the stage.

They're alone on either side of the stage as the representative from the Capitol stands between the two glass spheres, each holding only one name. Looking around the square at the cameras, she wonders if Vision is watching. The Reaping is staggered through the Districts, starting in 12, and she suspects that this year more than ever it is a tactic to make them all miserable. People are watching friends they've had for years be forced back into the Games, when they've all worked so hard to forge lives out of the ashes of the trauma they had to go through to win. So many families are watching a mother or a father be forced to fight for their life again, so many partners watching a spouse stand on the stage and pray it isn't their name.

She and Clint have no such luxury. Her name is read out, the representative's accent lingering over the softness of the final syllable, and she moves to the centre of the stage, trying to look defiant. Clint's name is called, and when he moves to the centre she turns and their eyes meet for a long moment, heavy with unsaid words. "And so begins the 75th Annual Hunger Games. As always, may the odds be ever in your favour."

They stare out over a silent crowd, pale pinched faces. Lila stands in the front row, and as Wanda watches she raises three fingers to her lips to kiss them before raising them into the air. A goodbye, and she sees Clint's arm rise out of the corner of her eyes, tears prickling hot behind her eyes as she returns the gesture to the people of her home. Lila stands strong and brave at the front of the crowd as the Peacekeepers lock their shields together and march them away to the train, to the Capitol. To the Games.

Clint turns on the live broadcast of the Reapings as soon as the train starts to move, posture locked tight and straight, his knuckles white on the edges of the armchair. She pulls away from it all, only catching seconds and moments of it. She sees Mantis chosen as the District 11 tribute, her soft pretty face crumpling. A woman and a little girl screaming when Drax is called to represent District 7, presumably his broken-hearted family. Short, sullen Rocket called to District 5. Sam Wilson's veneer of a charming grin cracking for a second when he's called out for District 4 before it returns in a wink to the camera before he follows the Peacekeepers away. Vision stepping forward to announce "I volunteer as tribute," when Hank Pym is named as the tribute for District 3, Clint reaching to squeeze Wanda's hand when her eyes close in defeat. Natasha Romanoff defiant when her name is called for District 2, her distinctive red hair flying in the wind, the scar across her jaw bright white in the blinding lights.

When they pull into the Capitol station, there are cameras and crowds and flashing lights, and she sees why immediately. District 3's train has already arrived, having a much shorter journey to make, and Vision is waiting for her. Like all the tributes she's seen today, he's wearing a simple jumpsuit, his navy banded with yellow, and she breaks and runs to him. His arms around her, his clean scent overwhelming her, and she clutches him tightly. The cameras are rushing to them, Capitol press calling for their comments, but he doesn't turn to answer like usual.

His hand finds her cheek, his eyes slowly inspecting her face. Then he smiles and breathes, "It was only two months, but I missed you more than ever," and kisses her before she can reply. There's a collective hum of adoration from the crowds gathered to watch the tributes arrive, and as she sinks into him she slowly forgets them.

"I love you," she whispers when he breaks away, and he smiles like the sun splitting through a thunderstorm. It's a perfect quiet moment before another camera flashes and Peacekeepers usher them away, to the chauffeured cars waiting to escort them to their apartments. In this nightmare, she's at least happy that there's no need to hide her relationship with Vision anymore, that he can drop his bags just inside the door of his apartment then follow her upstairs. Clint leaves almost immediately to meet with other tributes, and they're alone.

"I wondered how it would feel seeing my fiancée again," Vision says, and she lights up momentarily at the word, the formal term for what they are. Engaged to be married. Her future husband is sitting with her, a comforting thought until she remembers they'll be back in the arena in a week. There won't be any time for her to coo over wedding dresses and plan the colours of her bouquet. They'll never be married. "I think I'm more grateful every day that I did decide to propose."

"You shouldn't have volunteered," she says sharply. "It wasn't your name, Vizh."

"Hank is old, he might not make it through, he has a _wife_ -"

"We both know sympathy for Hank Pym is not the reason you volunteered," she says. "You could've lived without this. I didn't have a choice."

"You're my everything, Wanda," he says, and tears prickle her eyes. "If you don't have a choice, neither do I. I couldn't bear to think of you scared and alone in the arena and me sitting somewhere safe and warm, watching the live broadcasts. We'll go through this together."

"But only one person gets to win. I won't hurt you." A shadow flickers across his face, inexplicable, but before she can ask him anything he's pulling a box from his pocket, and she's blinking at him. "Vizh, you already gave me an engagement ring."

"These are wedding rings," he says, and understanding blooms in her chest, choking her. "I found them in this little pawn shop back home, and I found someone to engrave them." He takes out the wider band, obviously meant for hem, and tilts it beneath the soft penthouse lights, showing her the _VS + WM_ engraved on the inside of the band. "I don't want to go into the arena without being your husband."

"So what, you've arranged some ceremony crawling with cameras?"

"I don't care about ceremony," he says. "I don't need to wear a suit or see you in a veil. We don't need any eyes of the law to tell us what we mean to each other. I already know I love you. If I take you and you take me, we're married, simple as that."

"It won't be legal," she says softly, hypnotised by the sight of the rings in his hands. Their entwined initials, the symbol that they'll always be together. She could be his wife, as easily as just saying yes. "It won't be binding."

"Legal, no," he says. "But I've been bound to you since our first kiss, Wanda. I'll always be bound to you."

"You're crazy," she says with a slight shake of her head, and he just beams. "If we're going to conduct our wedding ceremony here and now, can I at least change first? I don't..." She gulps and says, "I don't want to be wearing the Capitol's clothes when I marry you."

"Go change," he says, tucking her hair gently behind her ear. "I'll change too. And I'll see if I can find you some flowers and music."

In her bedroom alone, she unearths all of her worldly possessions from her bags. An inventory of the few belongings she has in the world, all of it with her. When she's walking marked with death, there doesn't seem to be much point leaving anything behind. She pulls a white dress from a pile of clothes, the dress her mother wore on some spring day twenty-six years ago to marry her father. It's typical of a bride from the Seam, no adornment, and it doesn't fit her exactly right. The material is wildly crumpled, and no amount of shaking it out will help.

But it feels good not to look perfect on her wedding day. She's spent too much of the last ten years being perfected, and going to her own wedding in a dress an inch too short feels exactly right. Bare feet on the luxurious thick carpets, her hair in a tangled mess of waves, her only adornment her mother's wedding ring on a chain around her neck, where it always rests. Vision's eyes still go wide when he sees her before his face floods with colour and his eyes with tears.

Somehow, he's rigged up a soft swirl of music, and he has a simple pastel bouquet of flowers for her to hold. She has no knowledge of flowers, but none of them are roses, and that's all that matters. In this room, Pierce can't touch them. There's nothing but them, the light in Vision's eyes and his trembling hand on hers. "I guess I'll conduct our ceremony," he says quietly.

"Do you know the right words to say?" she asks, and he laughs, shaking his head. "I think it's simple. I think you just have to tell me everything you love about me, and squeeze an 'I do' in there somewhere."

"Everything I love about you? We'll be here for a thousand years." He smiles softly, a tear spilling down his cheek, and just takes her hand to slide the wedding ring onto her finger. "I do, Wanda. With every part of me, I do. I always have. I always will."

"I do too," she says, sliding the ring onto his finger. Matching bands of some strange dark metal, perfect against his paleness. Then her face splits into a smile and she says, "You're my husband now. Symbolically."

"Marriage is just a promise," he says, and breaks the stillness to kiss her, crushing her wedding flowers between them.

* * *

The countdown clock to the beginning of the Games displays only thirty-seven hours and forty-seven minutes until they'll be stepping back in the arena. She can hear the hum of the crowd assembled for the final interviews, their high-pitched Capitol voices twittering away, and hatred roils hot in her stomach, sour like nausea at the back of her throat. Though that may be the same nausea that's been plaguing her since the train arrived in the Capitol, growing worse with every day closer to the Games.

A quiet sense of mourning hangs thick in the air backstage, the tributes sitting in their small groups of alliances, silent as the grave. Everyone is dressed in their finery, stylists standing in their own brightly-coloured clusters like tropical birds, glasses of champagne in their hands and their laughter too loud and sharp. Her eyes drifting around the room, Wanda catches Natasha's eye, one of the Career pack in her gauzy black dress, red winding through the material like trails of blood on dark ground.

The redhead gives her a respectful nod, and she curls her arms around herself, rustling the skirts of her white dress. Black lace swims through the skirts of what is meant to emulate a wedding dress, swallowing up the bodice and creeping over her shoulders. Symbolic of the tragedy that will take away what was supposed to be her happy ending. Vision matches her, silent at her side, their hands tangled together. Her shaking fingers toy with the thick metal band of his wedding ring, the metal warm from his skin, and he brushes a gentle kiss to her temple as Gamora's name is called and the District 1 tribute stands with defiance in her eyes and sweeps onto the stage.

They're called in a random order, just another way to disorient everyone. The crown screams for their Victors, the people who have carved out public personas come hell or highwater through the years since they won their games. Grandmaster is sure to remind his audience of the Games each won, playing clips of their time in the arena that flicker across the screens set up backstage. Alternating between watching the screens and staring at her own lap, the pointed toes of her white shoes peeking out from beneath the frothy hem of her dress, Wanda watches the short highlight reels of each tribute.

Gamora with her face green with moss and fire in her eyes, forcing a sword through the belly of another Career. Drax hurling an axe a seemingly impossible distance into a tribute's back, blood spilling onto the ground. Mantis halfway up a tree and clinging to the bark as the Career pack bays for her blood below, never noticing the tracker jacker nest that the tiny, unthreatening girl drops on their heads. Natasha blank-faced and covered in blood at the centre of the massacre she wrought. Clint at the highest point of the arena in the last Quarter Quell, arrow nocked and bowstring taught next to his gritted jaw.

When she's called onto the stage, she can barely stand to watch her own highlight reel. The cityscape of the arena collapsing, Pietro curled over her to protect her from the cold of the night, their final moments realising they were the only two left alive. There's no audio on the clips, but she remembers his final words to her perfectly, his insistence that he was injured and ill and wanted her to be the one to go home, her begging him not to when he took the knife from her sheath and wrapped her hands around it. She watched her brother die in her arms, and while she waits for the cheering to die down she makes a silent vow that she will not watch her husband die too.

"Ten years have passed since you won your Games," Grandmaster says. "Such an extraordinary, tragic, compelling Victor. Your brother volunteered so you wouldn't be alone. So similar, in fact, to what your fiancé has now done. Tell me, Wanda - how did it feel?"

She looks at the audience, at the line of her fellow Victors behind her, the people who were promised if they won the Capitol would never try to ruin them again. The people who are tributes again, being thrown back into the lion's den, and she steels her eyes and clenches down on her sadness. "When Pietro volunteered, there was this moment of joy," she says, Grandmaster staring entranced at her. "This moment where I thought that at least I wouldn't be alone. But then you realise that you can't both come home. And you pray that you'll die before you have to see them go. No one wants to outlive the people they love."

"Powerful words," Grandmaster says, and she gives him a tight smile. "We all wait with baited breath to see you and your fiancé in the arena. We've had you for such a short time, it seems. I don't know how we will ever let you go."

"Let our story live on in your hearts," she says, and imagines Pierce somewhere surrounded by Peacekeepers, watching her. "Vision and I might not make it out of that arena. Odds are we won't. But remember that there should be no boundaries between us. I've found friends and family and love in people who aren't from District 12. When we tear down what arbitrary things separate us, who knows what we might find. What we could achieve."

There's a seat waiting for her at Clint's side, and her skirts rustle as she sits down. An Avox scurries onto stage to bring her a glass of champagne, as if this is some kind of celebration, and she sets it down by her feet. The other tributes are silent, watching the last few of them being called to their interviews, the silent plea on every face to stop the Games, stop the madness, make good on the promises that they'd live their lives in peace if they only won. That was supposed to be the promise in exchange for the lifetime of nightmares and flashbacks.

Vision is the last tribute to the stage, the same shy charm that he had in interviews when he played in his first Games still on display, and she twists her engagement ring around her finger and watches him. She sees people in the audience looking up at him with bright infatuated eyes as Grandmaster talks to him, as he retells the story of his Games, their love story. Hearing it told like that, like a fairytale, a bedtime story, she has to bite the inside of her cheek to hold back the tears that want to fall. Their story is being cut short, like everyone's on this stage. It's not supposed to be like this.

"I know that we are all devastated that a certain wedding won't happen," Grandmaster says, and she reaches for her wedding ring, brushing her fingers over where their initials are engraved on the inside of the band. Symbolic, but no less binding.

"Actually, we did get married," Vision says, and the crowd gasps. "Not legally. But we made promises to each other and exchanged rings. In the short time we have, that's enough for us. We got to have our once in a lifetime love, and I have no regrets." He shifts in the seat opposite Grandmaster, his face flickering with nerves, and she leans forward in her seat, wondering what he's going to say. "Or I'd have none, I should say. There is just one. I'd have no regrets, if it weren't...if it weren't..." A theatrical trailing off to his sentence, his gaze cast down to his hands wringing in his lap.

"If it weren't for what, Victor?" Grandmaster asks. Even he seems drawn in by the tactics, and Wanda takes a moment to admire Vision's skill at manipulating the crowd. Charming them to his side of the story. "You can share with us."

"If it weren't for the baby."

A hum from the crowd that explodes into a roar, into screaming and a rumble of, "Stop the Games!" that explodes into a crescendo. An uprising in the studio that Grandmaster can't quiet, he only mumbles a few words to Vision before he sends him to the line. He reaches Wanda's side and pulls her into his arms, holding her close for a long lingering moment, and she sinks her fingers into the thick hair at the back of his side and squeezes her eyes shut, breathing him in. Taking in the weight of the lie he told to keep her safe.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Grandmaster says, still too loud to be heard over the uproar, strain evident on his usually unnaturally smooth face, "your tributes for the 75th Annual Hunger Games!"

Silence holds in a single, suspended moment. Then Clint raises his hand in the three-finger salute, and slowly the other tributes unclench themselves to match him. Vision's fingers twine through Wanda's as he raises his hand, and she squeezes back before she matches the gesture of her fellow Victors. Brave. Bold. Defiant.

She's barely off the stage before a Peacekeeper's hand lands on her shoulder, drawing her away from the crowds. "President Pierce has called a doctor for you," comes the voice from behind the helmet. "He wants to receive the best care the Capitol can provide."

"Can I at least change out of this gown before I'm marched to a medical bay?" she snaps, and the hand retracts. She can catch up to Vision and pull him into shadows, away from the cameras, her heart pounding hard and endless against her ribs. "You shouldn't have done that," she whispers, frantic and frightened. "Now they want me to see a doctor. What do we do when there's no baby?"

"You miscarried," he says. "The stress of being chosen for the Games again. We argue that you've been through too much trauma in a short space of time to be healthy for the Games."

"They won't listen-"

"We have to try," he insists. "I'm trying to protect you-"

"And who's protecting _you_?!" she snaps, and the hurt flares in his eyes. "I get it, you don't want to watch me die. But I can't watch you die, Vizh, I _can't_. You're the one good thing I found when I'd lost everything. I-" She looks around them, Peacekeepers hovering, and takes a deep breath before she asks, "Unzip me? I can't go to the doctor in a fancy dress."

When she's changed into her normal clothes and Vision has gently, tenderly pulled the pins out of her hair, she's marched to the medical bay, Vision hovering behind her. Her head is spinning and nausea is sour at the back of her throat and she wants to scream at him for risking his life to save hers, for lying to the Capitol when Pierce could destroy both of them. She wants to fall into his arms and never let go. The last place she wants to be is letting a white-clothed doctor with a banal smile move around her, training their high-tech equipment on her, surrounded by coloured lights.

The last thing she expects to hear is, "Both fetuses look healthy, Ms. Maximoff. I will pass this along to President Snow and the Gamemakers."

" _Both_?" The doctor looks up from their clipboard at Vision's exclamation, seemingly confused. "I'm sorry, I...we had no idea there were two."

"Oh, of course, I suppose the Districts just don't have the equipment," the doctor says, and turns a screen to face them. "See, this is a full ultrasound of your uterus, Ms. Maximoff. And as you can see," their fingers trace the black and white shapes on the screen, outlining something she could never have seen coming, "there are two fetuses. Two heartbeats. You're expecting twins." Eyes on the clipboard again, they say, "I can print copies of the ultrasound for you if you would like a keepsake."

They leave the room, door swinging back and forth behind them, and Wanda breaks. Curled forward over herself, her hand finding her stomach beneath her shirt, pressing hard into her skin. "But it was a _lie_ ," she whispers, her voice small and scared, and turns to find Vision looking at the ultrasound. The frozen photograph of two fetuses, twins growing inside her, and she turns away from it, terrified. "I didn't know."

"You're pregnant." He whispers it, barely a breath on the silence, and finally turns to look at her. His eyes are full of tears and a smile slowly shines over his face. "We're having a _baby_."

"There's two of them," she says, scared and small. "Oh my God, Vizh, how could I not know? How did no one know? What the _hell_ are we going to do?"

Some of the shine fades from him, and the shadows creep in as reality seems to catch up to him. "They can't send you into the Games," he says, and she shakes her head. "They _can't_ , Wanda. You're pregnant, they can't send a pregnant woman into the arena, whoever heard of a pregnant tribute-"

"I heard a rumour," she says miserably. "I heard Natasha was pregnant was she was Reaped. I heard they made her abort it."

"I won't let them," he says fiercely, and grips her hands in his, pulling her close. "I love you. And I am with you through every moment of this. I know we never planned for this, but I never planned for you. I never expected a life like this. If...whatever you want to do, I'm with you."

She slides her hand out of his and lowers it to her stomach. Still flat beneath her simple clothes, and she imagines it rounding. Imagines how big she'll get carrying twins, trying to survive the arena with the weight of two more lives on her conscience. "I always swore I wouldn't have children," she says softly. "I swore I'd never watch my child have to be Reaped. I didn't...Vizh, you know I didn't want to get pregnant. I tried so hard to keep up those pills, but in District 12...even as a Victor, they were so hard to get."

"If you want to abort, I'll understand," he says softly, but when she looks up she can still see the hope in his eyes. "You choose."

She imagines her future as it looked before the Quarter Quell. A secret relationship until it fizzled out, became something she just occasionally thought of on long wistful nights before turning back to another man. There's no ideal path in her life. She could die in the arena. At any moment the Capitol could suck her in and chew her up, and what would anything mean anymore. When she holds Vision's hands and sees the light in his eyes and imagines the weight of a baby in her arms, something in her chest swells bright and warm. A charmed life with her husband and twin children. A new family to make her own, after the family she's lost.

"I think I want them," she breathes, and Vision's eyes brighten. "But I don't know what we're going to do. If they put me in the arena-"

"Can we take five minutes?" he asks. "Five minutes to be happy."

Slowly, she manages to untense herself, her shoulders drooping down. Fingers still trembling, she draws Vision's hand to place it gently over her flat stomach, and the utter awe and adoration on his face seems to brighten the whole room. It stops the fear swelling in her, if only for a moment. "I can do ten minutes," she says, and he lets out a breath of a laugh. She presses their foreheads softly together and breathes, "I love you. No matter what."

"I love you too."

* * *

A slight breeze lifts the delicate leaves of the plants arrayed on the balcony, and Wanda lowers her hand to wrap her fingers through Vision's as his hand slides around her waist. "Couldn't sleep?" he asks, his breath warm on her skin and his lips brushing her shoulder gentle as a butterfly's wing.

"Can anyone?" she asks softly, gesturing down at the building. Light is shining in almost every window - soft candlelight, the blue flicker of a screen, the single bright pinprick of a lighter. Vision's arm tightens around her, pulling her into his warmth, his sweet clean smell, and she squeezes his hand. "You seem calm."

"They can't take away the things that matter," he says. "They can't take you. They can't take the babies. They can't take away our wedding. When I walk into that arena, I'll go in with my head held high and I'll fight to come home to you." Another gentle kiss to her shoulder, where the shoulder of her shirt has slid down to leave bare skin, and he says, "I've made alliances. We're going to protect each other. They'll make sure I come home."

"Don't make me promises you can't keep," she says, the words hanging soft and dooming in the air. It hangs there, the inevitability, the pushed-aside knowledge that they're going to lose each other. Until she says, "I think I've chosen some baby names."

She doesn't need to look to see the way his eyes light up, the subtle twitch of a smile at the corners of his mouth. While she grapples with the thought of bringing a baby into a broken world, of ever being in the position that Clint was when Pierce announced that Lila would step into the arena in Wanda's stead, Vision sees nothing but the glow of the silver lining. She looks at him and imagines a world of happy families and sunny skies, an untouchable perfect life. His hand slips from hers to cover her stomach, his fingers spread wide and tender, and he says, "Tell me."

"Thomas for a boy," she says, quiet and unsure. Imagining the weight of a baby in her arms, of eyes like his, of a tiny person relying on her for anything and everything. "Diana for a girl."

"I like William," he says, just as soft as her. Like raising their voices will ruin this, shatter their perfect moment. The time that no one can touch, no cameras winking at them, no one watching. "Vivian for a girl."

"So we both get to pick a name," she says, and feels the curve of his smile against her neck. "Simple names. None of those silly Capitol ones."

"So I can't tell you I'd also like to consider Heracles for a boy or Antigone for a girl?" he asks, and she giggles in a breath, her head on his shoulder. He kisses her cheek, a pinprick of warmth of her skin, and says, "I hope they look like you."

"Every time I imagine them, I give them your eyes," she says, and finally turns to face him. His eyes are shadowed with sleepless nights, but he smiles as she runs her fingers over the planes of his face, memorising him. "Sometimes I wish I was going with you."

"Don't say that," he says, eyes darting as if Pierce is hovering right there, eyes gleaming, ready to throw her into the arena. "We're lucky, Wanda. You have a chance to make it out of all this. There are people here who'll protect you."

"I want to protect _you_ ," she insists, and he bows his head, pressing their foreheads together. She lifts her hands to frame his handsome face, taking him in. "I don't plan on raising our children alone. I need you with me, Vizh."

"I will be," he says. And as she watches he slips off his wedding ring and presses it into her chest, even though she shakes her head, eyes prickling. "I don't want to lose this in the arena. Keep it safe for me."

The tears come before she can choke them back, and she leans into him, burying her face in his chest. Dawn comes, and with it the sound of music, celebration. The Games begin today, people are already gathering in the streets below. Decked out in their finery and ready to watch twenty-three people march to their deaths and one to a lifetime of double the trauma. She dresses reluctantly in a simple red dress with a high waistline, though there's no bump to be hidden yet. Her stylist insisted on playing up the pregnancy with a sort of fierceness in her eyes that made her think she's been underestimating the girl as simple and flippant.

Cameras follow her to the basement where the tributes will be zipped up to the arena, and she wants to turn on them all, snarling like an animal for them to leave her alone. She wants, but she won't. She'll hold her hand curved over her belly, knowing people will watch the way her skirt swirls and settles over the roundness, or lack thereof. She'll smile at Vision, back in that navy jumpsuit from the Reaping, his hair parted with great care and his eyes clear and sad. When he takes her in his arms, the cameras whir eagerly, and she curls into him. Breathes him in and prays to anyone that might be listening that he'll come back to her.

"Be careful," she says softly, and he nods. "I mean it, Vizh. Don't throw yourself into unnecessary danger. Please."

"Don't worry, my darling," he breathes. His hand covers her on her stomach, his palm so big and fingers so long, and he smiles mistily. "I have three compelling reasons to come home." He leans down and kisses her, and she forgets the cameras and clings to him. Her fingers in his hair and his hands at her waist, the two of them holding each other tight, desperately clinging to each other against the pull of the tide.

When they fall apart, she looks around the room again. She sees Clint and Lila with matching fierceness in their eyes, both wearing black and purple, and feels a terrible flash of horror watching a thirteen year old step into the elevator. Clint raises a hand in farewell, and she blinks hard against the tears that want to fall. "I love you," she says, speaking into Vision's eyes, the perfect blue that's twined through her dreams since she looked at him across the room at his Victory Ball. "I love you more every day. Please come back to me."

"I will," he says, fierce and brave and so sure she almost believes him. "I promise." He kisses her again, then looks up at the Peacekeepers scattered through the room, moving ever closer. "We are out of time, Wanda."

She wants to shout and scream and whimper, cling to him like a child clinging to a beloved toy. She doesn't want to let him go. But doing that under the Capitol's nose is a recipe for disaster. So she simply gives him a last, brief kiss and steps back to watch him walk into the elevator. For the cameras, she lets a single tear slip down her cheek, her hand tightening on her stomach. Vision raises a hand to press against the glass and mouths _I love you_ to her, and she watches the elevator rise until it's out of sight.

The screens on the wall focus in on Grandmaster, his ornate gold robes and his hair slicked into a style that looks as if he's stuck his fingers in a particularly strong electric current. "Ladies and gentlemen," he says, his eyes bright with joy, "let the 75th Hunger Games and the 3rd Quarter Quell begin."


End file.
